COLLEGE STATION – Back when the Oilers split for Tennessee more than 20 years ago, plenty of Houston-area fans who couldn't stomach suddenly rooting for the Dallas Cowboys or the Tennessee Titans instead tried turning their semi-allegiances to the New Orleans Saints (slowly raises hand).

It at least made sense geographically, considering New Orleans is about a five-hour drive east on I-10 from Houston, easily the closest NFL franchise outside of Dallas to a fan base with no one left to root for from 1997-2001 (Bob McNair and his Texans filled that void in 2002).

Now, another fan base not far from Houston has a reason to yell for the Saints in the NFC title game in New Orleans on Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams: Four former Texas A&M standouts are assistants in New Orleans, making up nearly a fifth of the Saints coaching staff.

The list includes assistant head coach Dan Campbell and defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, along with secondary coach Aaron Glenn and defensive assistant Michael Hodges. Two of those – Campbell and Hodges – are winners of the Aggie Heart Award, the highest honor for a senior player at A&M. And Allen's father, the late Grady Allen, won the Aggie Heart Award in 1967.

I began covering the Aggies for the Bryan-College Station Eagle in 1995, which was Dennis Allen's last season and Campbell's first season. In 2002 I began covering Glenn with the Texans, one of the franchise's first players, and also covered Hodges closing in on a decade ago at A&M.

Allen is best known around Kyle Field for his 1993 interception of Texas quarterback Shea Morenz in the end zone in the fourth quarter that helped preserve an 18-9 A&M victory, and gave the Aggies their third consecutive Southwest Conference title and third consecutive Cotton Bowl visit.

"That play served as a defining moment for our defense, and I'll never forget it," A&M defensive lineman Sam Adams once recalled. "It stands out more than any other in my A&M career."

Campbell, a strapping country boy, is recalled for being the soul of the Aggies' last league champions in 1998. He once shared a story of the time then-A&M coach R.C. Slocum came to his rural home near Glen Rose to recruit him, compared to the recruitment of then-Texas assistant Bucky Godbolt.

The contrast made his decision easy, Campbell said.

"I live way out in the country," he said. "(Slocum) fit in perfectly – we were a match. When coach Godbolt came to my house, there were some stray goats out by the creek. He said, 'Man, what are those black deer doing down there?' My dad and I just started laughing. We told him they were just goats."

Glenn, a junior-college transfer from Navarro, played for two SWC champions at A&M in the early 1990s. The Aggies sealed a win over the Longhorns in Austin in 1992 on a 95-yard interception return by Glenn.

"I guessed slant, and I guessed right," Glenn once reminisced of A&M's 34-13 victory over UT nearly 27 years ago. "I couldn't ask for a better way to wrap up my first game against the Longhorns in one of the best, if not the best, rivalries in college football."

In 2010 Hodges, a former walk-on, was key in the Aggies' 33-19 upset of Oklahoma at Kyle Field, in collecting 19 tackles – most since Dat Nguyen had 20 in the Cotton Bowl following the 1997 season – and two sacks of the Sooners.

Then-A&M linebacker Von Miller, a future Super Bowl MVP, once described Hodges as his "conscience" while both still played for the Aggies.

"Whenever I'm on the field or at home watching film, I always hear that Michael Hodges voice," Miller once said. "My conscience is narrated by Michael Hodges – it sounds just like him. When we're on the field – and this is bad – half the time I don't even look for the signal (from the sidelines).

Brent Zwerneman is a staff writer for the Houston Chronicle covering Texas A&M athletics. He is a graduate of Oak Ridge High School and Sam Houston State University, where he played baseball.

Brent is the author of four published books about Texas A&M, three related to A&M athletics. He’s a four-time winner of APSE National Top 10 writing awards for the San Antonio Express-News, including a second-place finish for breaking the Dennis Franchione “secret newsletter” scandal in 2007.

His coverage of Texas A&M’s move to the SEC from the Big 12 also netted a third-place finish nationally in 2012. Brent met his wife, KBTX-TV news anchor Crystal Galny, in the Dixie Chicken before an A&M-Texas Tech football game in 2002, and the couple has three children: Will, Zoe and Brady.